Why are Iraqis still gathering in crowds after the recent spate of car bomb attacks? Seems idiotic

Posted by: Andoheb | Sep 21 2013 18:32 utc | 3

3
Rather your comments seems idiotic, iraqis cant meet now?

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 21 2013 18:59 utc | 5

6
Why would it? The murderer has been caught, have nothing to do with Iran.
Besides what “talks”?

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 21 2013 19:44 utc | 7

Can anyone tell me who wrote the “red-line” speech for Obama?

Posted by: g_h | Sep 21 2013 20:15 utc | 9

Here’s a new hit job on a dead man. This surely makes that trashy film “The last King of Scotland” look like a masterpiece of peer-reviewed historical research. Writing books specifically to salve the guilt of murderous western liberals is surely a growth industry.
Gaddafi’s Perverted Power Plays
BY KATIE BAKER
He abducted young women as sex slaves and forced them to take drugs and watch porn. He raped his male guards, soldiers, and ministers. Annick Cojean talks about her new book on Gaddafi’s cold-blooded sexual debauchery.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/09/20/gaddafi-s-abuses-of-power-included-abducting-young-girls-raping-men-says-annick-cojean-in-her-new-book-gaddafi-s-harem.html

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 21 2013 20:27 utc | 11

Just to update people on the Iraqi situation.
There are a lot of bombs against the Shi’a, and a lesser number against the Sunnis. One could imagine that the bombs against the Sunnis are a response.
Who is driving the Sunni bombings? One possibility is the native Sunnis of Iraq. They were in rebellion against the US occupation, at Haditha, for example. They were defeated then, and the question will be whether they are ready to revolt again. I don’t get that impression. It almost happened when there was a massacre of Sunnis earlier this year.
The Baghdad government is sectarian, without doubt. I’ve had no success in asking for a scholarship for a

Posted by: alexno | Sep 21 2013 20:45 utc | 13

to continue:
for a Sunni from Mosul.
The defeatist attitude of the Iraqi Sunnis suggests that the aggression is from elsewhere, from the foreign jihadis supported by Saudi.
I don’t suppose that my analysis is quite right, but close.

Posted by: alexno | Sep 21 2013 20:55 utc | 15

http://www.syrianews.cc/syria-al-qaeda-beheaded-fsa/ things seem to be looking up for the “moderates” /sarc

Posted by: somone else | Sep 21 2013 21:01 utc | 17

This man is a brilliant artist and writer. He captures the America that exists outside of the gentrified areas of a few big cities.
http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 21 2013 21:26 utc | 19

AP reporter Dale Gavlak saying Prince Bandar threatening her over Syria chemical weapons story exposing ‘rebel’ use of CW:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/official-statement-on-dale-gavlaks-involvement-in-syria-exclusive/169507/

Posted by: revenire | Sep 21 2013 21:43 utc | 21

@19 Complete with a comment from Louis Proyect, that scumbag.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 21 2013 22:16 utc | 23

Via The Keiser Report, Get your barf bags ready:

Give Back? Yes, It’s Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1%
Imagine … if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/

I’m not a violent guy, but the author here is really asking for a vigorous pitchforking.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 21 2013 23:00 utc | 25

Unbelievable. A genuine al Qaeda terrorist pays a $100 and goes free. But Manning rots in jail.

An Army veteran from Phoenix charged with joining a terrorist group to fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to time served.
Former Pfc. Eric Harroun, 31, had been accused of fighting alongside Syrian rebels, including Jabhat al-Nusra, a group the U.S. had designated as a terrorist organization, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit filed with the original charges in March.
http://www.militarytimes.com/article/20130920/NEWS06/309200011/Army-vet-charged-joining-terrorists-pleads-guilty-lesser-charge

via the Angry Arab

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 0:03 utc | 27

Demographics=the future. That’s what “Spengler” said in his book How Civilizations Die but he misapplied his analysis wrt Israel and the US. He claimed that Israel was expanding demographically and then asserted that it was due to the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. Basically, those are the Jews who collect their welfare cheques and sit on their tookuses all day and who depend on their leaders to read Torah and issue fatwas telling them how to behave (instead of hijabs their married women have to shave their heads and wear ugly wigs) while the secular Jews go out and fight for them and then leave Israel. Meanwhile the Palestinians are having big families. So at the end of the day there will be no Israel. All the Arabs have to do is sit and wait.

Posted by: Albertde | Sep 22 2013 0:40 utc | 29

What a f*cking smear job by the Grey Lady of Mother Agnes… A Nun Lends a Voice of Skepticism on the Use of Poison Gas by Syria
“The fact that the Russian government is relying on this woman’s assessment of what happened just shows the lack of evidence for their case,” said Lama Fakih, a Syria researcher for Human Rights Watch. “She is not a military expert.” {…}
“This led me to become a hippie,” she said with a grin.
She fell in with foreigners who came to Lebanon for the drugs — “Lebanese marijuana is the best in the world,” she said — and traveled to India and Tibet before returning to religion.
Wtf, over…?

Posted by: CTuttle | Sep 22 2013 1:33 utc | 31

@29
note they dont attack Mother Agnes evidence just her person…and HRW joins in: lets make this go viral
is HRW a military expert? and why are they more to be trusted?

Posted by: brian | Sep 22 2013 2:10 utc | 33

@3
KEEP
CALM
and
CARRY
ON

Posted by: Jeremiah Cornelius | Sep 22 2013 2:39 utc | 35

All the Arabs have to do is sit and wait.
Posted by: Albertde | Sep 21, 2013 8:40:36 PM | 27
That’s bonk and wait, which works better than whinge and wait, or wait and wait.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 22 2013 4:11 utc | 37

9/10 no it was very deliberate, thought through statement during a press conference
something along the lines of
“made clear with Assad and other players on the ground use of chemical weapons would change the calculus”
Now one should assume incompetence first and a devious plan second, presumably it was politics mainly to assure everybody that the US will protect Israel, however, it was an invitation for a false flag by interested parties.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 5:15 utc | 39

Posted by: CTuttle | Sep 21, 2013 10:36:52 PM | 32
they should sanction israel

Posted by: brian | Sep 22 2013 5:55 utc | 41

What doddering paranoid old fools… Saudi Arabia bans ‘vendetta’ masks ahead of National Day

Posted by: CTuttle | Sep 22 2013 6:55 utc | 43

The New York Times weighs in on the Dale Gavlak issue trying to make it sectarian by association – they already had to put one correction under the article they should put another correction under it

Ms. Muhawesh, who studied journalism at St. Cloud State and worked briefly as an intern at a local news station before launching MintPress, declined to name the “retired businesspeople” who provided the financial backing for her site in an interview with the local news site MinnPost. She did say, though, that her Jordanian-born father-in-law, Odeh Muhawesh, was an important adviser.
Mr. Muhawesh is chief executive of a software company and an adjunct professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas. In one of his lectures on theology available on YouTube, Mr. Muhawesh describes himself as a former Sunni Muslim who converted to the Shiite sect. His personal Web site begins with a clear affirmation of his Shiite beliefs in a statement that says true peace, “according to my faith, will occur when Imam Mahdi, the 12th Imam, will appear along with the second coming of Jesus the Messiah.”

This is scandalous. It is like saying “The NYT’s editorial policy of defending Saudi Arabia detrimental to facts and American values is evident by the Jewish upbringing of its editorial editor”.
Point 2 where they get their facts wrong. Dale Gavlak’s and Yahya Ababneh’s article does not claim to explain how August 21 chemical attacks happened, all they claim is that interviewees confirmed “rebels” had Sarin.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 7:13 utc | 45

add to 42) There is something else the NYT suddenly lets creep in from one article to another which is obviously intentionally wrong

The article’s central claim, however, that hundreds died outside Damascus on Aug. 21 because Syrian rebels carrying poison gas in tubes and a “huge gas bottle” had “handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” seems to have been undermined by the findings of United Nations weapons experts who visited the site of the chemical attack. As my colleagues Rick Gladstone and C.J. Chivers explained, information gathered by the U.N. inspectors suggested that poison gas in shells with Cyrillic markings was fired into rebel-held areas on the outskirts of Damascus from the direction of Syrian government forces.

As the NYT state themselves in a different article:
The Cyrillic markings were found on a rocket engine not on shells. The UN investigators did neither find nor analyze shells – they explicitely say that the warhead was not present at the site of impact. The Russians say these obsolete rockets from 1967 were delivered to Libya and Egypt but not to Syria. This is clearly disinformation. Will we get a correction?
Some people are getting desparate the false flag is obvious.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 7:34 utc | 47

Some #42
Thanks a lot for these.
Not sure this has been linked here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/20/us-palestinians-israel-eu-hamlet-idUSBRE98J0GK20130920
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/82096/World/Region/Israeli-forces-manhandle-EU-diplomats,-seize-West-.aspx
No Sissi donkey in Egypt…http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/82153/Egypt/Politics-/Egyptian-arrested-for-naming-donkey-after-general.aspx

Posted by: Mina | Sep 22 2013 9:06 utc | 49

45) this is Russia’s official statement

The Soviet Union has never exported warheads with sarin to foreign countries, the Head of Russian Presidential Administration Sergey Ivanov stated Wednesday.
“No one is disputing the fact that the USSR never supplied warheads with sarin either to Syria or any other country of the world,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration head Sergei Ivanov told reporters.
The report of UN experts says that the rocket at the site of the chemical attack in Damascus had Cyrillic characters written on it.
“Now imagine: an old, ancient Soviet rocket and warhead, which came out of nowhere. This alone should raise big questions. And second, the committee found large tanks at the site:near which traces of sarin were found. Not a single army of the world ever uses such tanks. So they were almost surely made in someone’s backyard,” Ivanov said.

The UN found no warhead on the site with the rocket bearing Cyrillian engravings (the 1967 Soviet rocket). They found a warhead with 56+-6 liters capacity on the second site with the unidentified rocket.
That is also an add to 44) The NYT suddenly finds Cyrillic markings on shells – they do not exist in the UN report

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 9:21 utc | 51

All of this nonsense about the “cyrillic markings” and who had what weapons where and even who has sarin or not seems to completely eclipse the fact that the country is a war zone where the government and opposition have continually see-sawed across the territory capturing this and that. This doesn’t even mention the possibilities of weaponry being sold and/or stolen by criminals. That even doesn’t mention the fact that the entire operation is funded and sourced by outside powers with access to anything available on the black market in this sea of weapons that is today’s middle east.
The very idea that one could draw conclusions on who possesses what weapons in the foggiest of foggy wars based on who was sold what decades ago is completely ridiculous, especially when you are discussing little more than a handful of rockets.
This is all propaganda for use in talking points and nothing more. The sole purpose is so that during a media debate one can cry “cyrillic markings!” when the issue of the Syrian government’s culpability comes up.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 12:56 utc | 53

obviously – from RT

The US is pushing Russia into approving a UN resolution that would allow for military intervention in Syria, in exchange for American support of Syria’s accession to OPCW, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
“Our American partners are starting to blackmail us: ‘If Russia does not support a resolution under Chapter 7, then we will withdraw our support for Syria’s entry into the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This is a complete departure from what I agreed with Secretary of State John Kerry’,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Channel 1’s Sunday Time program.
Chapter 7 of the UN charter would allow for potential military intervention in Syria.

In other news the Russian Damascus embassy is hit by mortar shells.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 13:10 utc | 55

This episode in Syria has done another good thing for Russia to my mind – it has raised the profile of Sergey Lavrov and shown him to be smart, adept, and principled.
Maybe Mr. Pragma or others more familiar with Russian politics can indicate wether he’d ever be a potential nominee for the office of President when Mr. Putin’s time is up.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 13:33 utc | 57

Re #40, #53: Goldberg and/or Goldhagen are operating on a completely false argument, namely that “Jewish independence” (ie Zionism) “was first prescribed to cure the disease of anti-Semitism.” It was prescribed, eg by Pinsker, as a way of coping with, or defending Jews against “anti-Semitism”, which was assumed to be an incurable fact of life, worldwide, without convenient exceptions such as liberal USAia. The obvious prognostication that was made by intelligent Zionists from the very first inception of Zionism was that exacerbated “anti-Semitism” would act as dialectical twin to Zionism, ie both as cause impelling Jews to Zionism and as effect of their being impelled to it, thereby eventually forcing all the world’s Jews to take refuge in the Jewish state as their only hope of survival. Thus the fortress mentality was built into it from the start. Nobody pretended that Zionism, and territorial independence resulting from it, would bring peace on earth and an absence of hostility towards Jews. I use quote marks around the jargon term “anti-Semitism” because I consider it basically misleading as to the various forms of militant opposition to the various forms of Jewish activity.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Sep 22 2013 13:48 utc | 59

g h asked… Can anyone tell me who wrote the “red-line” speech for Obama?
Not without inside info.
I think he was coerced or at least heavily prodded to make it. He probably thought it was of not much consequence at the time. Or reckoned that it could be a support, rationale, for some ‘legit’ stance, > action, as referring to CW in Int’l law, etc., a card to be pulled out of the sleeve when needed. Or he felt the need to fix some future ‘barrier’, some pompous position that would look upright, strong, determined, and just went with it.
Remember, the US has denied several CW attacks in Syria as being perpetrated the Syria Gvmt, or anyone for that matter, and the many CW attacks (whether real or pretend with fake vids and so on) were simply ignored.
Over the space of a year, the attitude was, nothing to see here, move on.
The US did officially – the details are murky – change it’s mind about one, in Aleppo, March 2013, the most credible CW attack, stating after much to and fro-ing, that is was a CW attack, without naming those responsible. Though that was not a Gvmt. official position and lead to no action, these were statements from some pols / agencies / etc.
This all came to a head in mid August when certain factions lost patience and his red-line statement was trumpeted and used as a forcing card.
(Meaning, CW attacks in themselves are of no import, it is a political internal USisr game.)
> guest 77 thx for the photos.

Posted by: Noirette | Sep 22 2013 13:58 utc | 61

@58 They’re nice huh? And excellent writing as well. He’s always posted at information clearinghouse. A site which always has great info, even if 90% of the commenters are scumbags.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 14:36 utc | 63

lol @ israeli forces in nairobi!
http://presstv.com/detail/2013/09/22/325379/israeli-forces-enter-nairobi-mall/
Not surprising, region is probably filled with israeli spies.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 22 2013 14:41 utc | 65

The tragedy of Mexico:

To begin with, I will say that my name is Juan, but that’s not my real name. If I were to tell you, I will probably end up like my neighbor Ramón, who soldiers took from his home in the early morning. They put him in a truck without license plates, they beat him with a board until they ripped the skin from his buttocks and then threw him unconsciously in a ditch where some dogs killed him. He left a widow who doesn’t eat nor sleep and two daughters who’ve wet the bed ever since their dad is gone. It was all because he denounced an illegal search from some “army guys” who stole some jewelry from his sister. Do you see why I tell you that my name is Juan?
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2013/09/shouting-in-michoacan-voices-against.html#more

Compare to:

Yes, Mexico continues to struggle with grave security threats, but it is also fostering a globally competitive marketplace, a growing middle class, and an increasingly influential pro-democracy voter base. In addition, Mexico’s ties with the United States are changing. Common interests in energy, manufacturing, and security, as well as an overlapping community formed by millions of binational families, have made Mexico’s path forward increasingly important to its northern neighbor.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136064/shannon-k-oneil/mexico-makes-it

Again, all it takes is a pundit to say a few magic words: “Of course there are still Security Threats but…” and the reality of people being butchered on a daily basis is obscured by buzzwords like “competitive marketplace” and “pro-democracy voter base” … like so many bodies in a narco grave covered by a thin layer of dry Zacatecas dirt.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 15:58 utc | 67

lol @ israeli forces in nairobi!
Not surprising, region is probably filled with israeli spies.
Israelis are either full or part owners of the mall, according to different versions, or even owners of the café.

Posted by: alexno | Sep 22 2013 16:15 utc | 69

@70 Not to be nit=picky, but her name is Dale, and she is a woman.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 17:05 utc | 71

No talk about the elections in Germany? Unsurprising results I know, but most important elections in Europe. Looks like Merkel for another 4 years. Also looking like her CDU Party could get an outright majority, first since Adenauer. Awful result for the Social Democrats, the anti-Capitalist Linke Party will likely be the third largest party in Germany but considering the economic crisis they should have got more than 8.5%.
– The Guardians quick take on the scene:

More than three years into the European Union’s worst ever nightmare, Merkel, uniquely in the Eurozone, has been hugely rewarded for her handling of the currency and sovereign debt crisis. Everywhere else voters have punished governments.
Her victory demonstrates the gulf between Germany and the rest of the EU and the Eurozone, although it is not clear what impact her third term will have on the direction of the crisis.

So who are the winners and losers in all this?

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Sep 22 2013 18:27 utc | 73

73) The FDP – which is the free trade party representing special interest groups – is probably finished for good – they are also out in regional elections. That means Merkel’s CDU will need either the Greens or the Social Democrats as coalition partners in the future. Maybe they get an absolute majority with 42/43 percent this time, that will not last.
It is very difficult to find any difference in Social Democrat and CDU policies nowadays. The Greens have a generational problem.
There is no economic crisis in Germany. Official unemployment rate is 5.3 percent. Die Linke represents the part of German society that is dependent on transfer payments by the state. Social Democrats and Greens have similar constituencies.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 18:55 utc | 75

My new favorite show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7eurP-t3Z0
#454 SECRETS OF THE GULF (1991)
From various sources we piece together three significant facets of the Gulf War which were ignored or distorted by the media. First is the history of the area, particularly the development of Iraq and its relationship to Kuwait; the legitimate complaints which Iraq had with Kuwait; and the various ways which the US may have manipulated Saddam Hussein in attacking Kuwait after installing Saddam in the first place and protecting him as a useful ally until the war started.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 19:49 utc | 77

@ 75
Certainly good news about the FDP they do seem to be the biggest losers of the night.
Even though the Social Democrats are similar in most respects to the CDU they did seem to be more interested in the growth-led recovery rather than the Austerity model. In that respect, I think Pro-Austerity also won big. Merkel has resisted all calls to ease up and now she will take this vote as a sign to continue for several more years.
In foreign policy, Merkel has never seemed all that bad compared with Cameron or Hollande. She didn’t take part in Libya (although she voted for the UN resolution) and opposed the US strike on Syria with the diplomatic language of “needs to go through the Security Council”. Putin and Russia may have wished for a Social Democrat win, after all Merkel and Putin aren’t to friendly given the roles they played in the East/West Germany theater of the cold war. The UK will be thankful for a Social Democrat loss, since they would have taken a harder line on the UK’s attempts to renegotiate EU membership. On the NSA phone tapping, I think the Yanks will be happy since Merkel is complicit in the actions, so will be reluctant to take a hard line.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Sep 22 2013 20:02 utc | 79

So those Kenyan attackers were international Jihad

According to the terrorist group the attackers all between the age of 20 and 27 years old, are from various different countries and where all trained in Somalia.
Sayid N. from Kismayu, Somalia.
Zaki Jama C., from Hargeisa, Somalia
Said D., from Damascus, Syria
Mohamed B., from Aleppo, Syria
Qasim Said M., Garissa, Kenya
Ismail G., from Helsinki, Finland
Ahmed Nasir S., from London, UK
Mustafa N., from Kansas City, US
Abdishakur Sheikh H., from Maine, US
Abdifatah Osman K., from Minneapolis, US
Ahmad Mohamed I., from Saint Paul, US
Abdikarem Ali M., from Illinois, US
Shafie D., from Tucson, US
Eliko M., from Dagestan, Russia
Mohammed A., from Svalov, Sweden

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 20:49 utc | 81

79) Looks like Merkel will need a new coalition partner. Either Social Democrats or Greens will be part of the government.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 22 2013 21:26 utc | 83

Remind us again how horrible the Russians are for banning US adoptions…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-usa-adoption-homicide-idUSBRE98900020130910
U.S. adoptive mother guilty of homicide in death of Ethiopian girl
By Jonathan Kaminsky
OLYMPIA, Washington | Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:09pm EDT
(Reuters) – A U.S. adoptive mother accused of starving her 13-year-old Ethiopian-born daughter and locking her outside in the cold, where she died from exposure, was found guilty of homicide on Monday in Washington state.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 22 2013 22:49 utc | 85

@84 It probably goes back to Operation Provide Relief in 1992. That was basically a play for the Horn of Africa.

Posted by: dh | Sep 22 2013 22:58 utc | 87

@CTuttle#31:
The NYT has a lot of nerve to use the family of a slain journalist in Syria as a means to smear a target. Considering how little coverage the NYT has given to the kidnapping and death of journalists in Syria. Especially considering their possible contribution to the death of their own Anthony Shadid (at minimum, through pressure on him to take an assignment he knew to be a great risk for him personally, as well as the flimsy transport into Syria they arranged for him). It’s as though is the only journalist ever killed in Syria and that Mother Agnes was luring journalists into the peaceful town of Homs:

International rights groups see Mr. Lavrov’s reference to the work of an untrained nun as a sign of desperation.
“The fact that the Russian government is relying on this woman’s assessment of what happened just shows the lack of evidence for their case,” said Lama Fakih, a Syria researcher for Human Rights Watch. “She is not a military expert.”
There are other shadows around Mother Agnes. She has helped foreign journalists obtain visas, suggesting trust by the government. The widow and two colleagues of Gilles Jacquier, a French journalist killed in Homs last year, published a book in which they suggest that she conspired in a lethal trap set by the government.
…
But Sid Ahmed Hammouche, a Swiss reporter who helped write the book accusing Mother Agnes of complicity in his colleague’s death, sees her differently. “She defends the regime and plays the Christian card,” he said. “We know very well that Bashar wanted to play the Christian card, and he still does.”

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Sep 22 2013 23:27 utc | 89

Now Wikipedia can do what it took 12 FBI agents writing unattributed smear letters to do – amplify divisions in the anti-war movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.N.S.W.E.R.
How can it be that the entire article is about a minor dust up with another anti-war organization instead of all the different issues and actions A.N.S.W.E.R. is involved in? The answer is obvious.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 23 2013 0:24 utc | 91

92) If he is America’s boy Western media has a strange way to show it.

From the West’s perspective, a Kenyatta victory presents a conundrum. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson warned before the election that “choices have consequences,” widely seen as a recommendation that voters should back Odinga. London has already warned that it would keep official contact with a President Kenyatta to a minimum, as it does with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
But the reality is that, in a world where Kenya finds itself as much sought after as suitor, Western powers no longer get to call the shots in Africa. In many ways, and particularly in its homegrown innovations in mobile technology such as mobile banking and solar power, Kenya personifies the new, emerging Africa of young and dynamic entrepreneurs. Its position as East Africa’s business hub has only been enhanced by its recent discovery of large reserves of oil and gas. Kenya is also a linchpin of the U.S. and European security structure in Africa, ranged as it is against Islamist groups and pirates, particularly in neighboring Somalia.
Westerners rely on Kenya in other ways too: the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is the base of choice for much of the international community in East Africa, from large embassies to aid-group headquarters to donor conferences to security contractors. And should the West give Kenya the cold shoulder, it may find it is not missed as it once might have been: Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern and Latin American diplomats and businessmen are also part of the fabric in today’s Kenya.

The media uses the label Al-Shahab so they do not have to say Al Qaida. Al Qaida is simply a way to organize and donate for issues some people care about. There is no way anybody can “control” it, though secret services and state actors can infiltrate and use the system.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 23 2013 4:57 utc | 93

There is also the case of the Woolwich murder in London – and the way MI5/6 uses immigrant youth and their families.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 23 2013 5:39 utc | 95

73) To explain German politics, the headlines “Merkel’s victory” are misleading as this time again, there is a majority of Social Democrats, Die Linke and Greens. For lots of historical and competitive reasons Social Democrats exclude a coalition with Die Linke. Merkel has to govern with this potential majority in mind. Merkel’s “win” presumably were mostly votes that used to go to her coalition partner, the FDP.

Posted by: somebody | Sep 23 2013 7:45 utc | 97

Woolwich murderer? I don’t get it he killed a soldier during war. If england doesn’t like having their soldiers killed in their country they shouldn’t be sending troops into other people’s countries to kill that nations soldiers.
As for the seeming conflict over which side to support in Kenya, it is obvious if you stop considering the world dualisticly ie one thing good so the other must be bad.
The ragtag armies in Syria are working for assholes no doubt about it but that doesn’t make the fighters in em all bad.
They loathe western imperialism and although the motivation to fight it has been perverted in Syria by a globalist elite posing as Arab nationalists, that doesn’t make it so everywhere, especially not in Africa where fukasi have been laying waste to ancient cultures in their endless pursuit of new targets for resource theft.
Later on if North Africans wrest control from fukasi, it may be time to consider their motives as political leaders are corruptible no doubt about it, but Muammar Ghaddaffi provided no-strings assistance to sub-sahara Africa for decades, right up until fukus had no place else to expand than africa so decided he had to go so they could ‘develop new markets’. Many of the people resisting fukasi in Africa now are remnants of the Colonel’s support.
It’s a Westgate Mall they’ve attacked for fuck’s sake. That is about as offensive an edifice in Kenya for Africans as a world trade center in manhattan was for humans all over the planet. A huge shopping mall in Africa, put there for the whitefella ‘expats’ (as they call themselves) to pretend like they’re back ‘ome in huddersfield or where-ever, as R’Giap used to say “Its like shitting on the carpet”. What is the matter with the ancient markets & bazaars?
Well no – we do know the answer to that, you can’t buy stock on the bazaar franchiser on the NYSE, that’s why the mall is there, to make sure none of the wages these witless agents of empire get paid, can possibly ‘trickle down’ to the Kenyans who have been made refugees in their own country by this corporate expansion. All the money gets ‘repatriated’ back to new york always.
The fact that some investors are israeli probably wouldn’t have figured too much in Shebab’s motivation but it would have helped give the fighters extra motivation.
The west plays it up because they always like to try to make the other side out to be the nazis that they are. It is amerika that runs a militaristic secret police state, which just like the nazis refuses to recognise sovereignty and claims innate superiority. For me there is no difference between nazi’s claims of aryan superiority & amerika’s claim to exceptionalism.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 23 2013 21:40 utc | 99